"I will find out who has it."
"No one leaves their door open around here," Gates said.
"Unless they are expecting guests," Gurung answered. He was one of the few who had kept his goggles attached to his helmet. The helmet itself looked odd on a man wearing a cotton shirt and jeans. He might have been a reporter for CBS, minus the flak jacket.
"I'll talk to him," said Hutton, skirting his way around Gates. Gurung stopped him with an outstretched hand and gave Gates an inquiring look.
"Not a good idea. Either she was kidnapped because she's a terp or because they found out about your little dalliance."
"Shit on that."
"And we'll shit on you, if you don't sit still." Gates turned back to the Gurkha leader. "Does he speak English?"
"No."
"Haji? Hood? I'd advise it."
With a sound of disgust, Ghaith removed his ski mask from his pocket and pulled it down over his head with a hard yank.
"You look like the SAS in Ireland," Gates chuckled. "Cm'on. No…the rest of you stay here. Help Gurung."
"I don't think he needs help," Ropp observed.
"Then if you see these lads playing cricket with human heads, let the sergeant know. We can have none of that. Al Jazeera will be all over us."
Gates and Ghaith entered Sarah's house. A man in a white dishdasha and brown vest sat broodingly in a rattan chair. He was illuminated by a small lamp on a stand next to the chair.
"Power's still up," said Gates in a voice of wonder.
"As-salamu alaykum," said Ghaith, walking up to Sarah's father, who did not return the greeting. Two girls, both around ten years of age, were watching from the next room. They gave curt little nods and disappeared behind a partition when Ghaith repeated the greeting.
Ghaith crouched in front of the chair. "Your daughters are lovely."
"Do not speak of my daughters," the man said lowly.
"Sorry if I'm rude, but we're in a rush. We're looking for one of your daughters: Afaf. Can you tell us where she is?"
"Why?"
"We believe she has been taken away," said Ghaith, not adding that she had probably been kidnapped from this very house. "She is in great danger."
"Does that concern me?"
"Daughters are a great blessing. That is the saying of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him."
"His daughters bowed to his will."
"And Afaf does not? I don't understand. I met her. She was a good Muslim."
"You met her in my absence? You must have. I don't remember a man in a mask. She met many men outside my presence. She has no brothers or close male relatives."
Ghaith swore at himself for his misstep. He, above all, should have known better. Probably the result of evading God.
"Where is she?" Gates asked, hovering close.
"He hasn't said."
"We don't have time. If the muj don't get us, the bloody Yanks might finally mistake us for—"
"I understand." Ghaith leaned closer to the father and returned to Arabic. "Let's talk about this later. We have to—"
"She thought we couldn't hear her."
"I don't understand."
"There was a wall between us. She thought we couldn't hear. But we did. Every night, talking to some American…" Sarah's father raised his upper lip. "Cooing…"
"Yes, we can't have any cooing with the Americans."
"She had a phone! Where did she get it? The Americans, of course, so they could call her any time of the day or night. That was bad enough. But…"
"Cooing. Yes, I understand. And we will smite her mightily when she gets home. But in the meantime—"
"You're a lackey. Go away."
"You've got that right," Ghaith admitted. "I'm the lackiest. Unfortunately, with your daughter gone, I'm the only one here who speaks Arabic fluently. I'm unhappy about it, you're unhappy about it, we're all unhappy about it. I'm sure this big Englishman here would like to know what we're saying. But there it is."
"If you think so, you may go."
"Do you know where Afaf has been taken? I believe you do. In fact, I believe they told you where they were taking her. That's why your door was left open. So we could come in. So you could tell us. They want us to know. A trap awaits us. Wouldn't that please you? Don't you want to see my brains spread like jelly across the road? Talk! If you don't, they'll be the ones who kill you, for not helping them."
The man's eyes deepened into sorrow. "I want nothing the world has to offer."
"'You accepted grief, but grief would not accept you.'" An old Iraqi saying. "I appreciate that you don't want to see us, the enemy, turned into a gelatinous mess. It shows you have a conscience. You also don't want to see the insurgents turned into a gelatinous mess. Very commendable. But that leaves Afaf."
"She is finished," said the father, looking directly into Ghaith's eyes. "You see where I sit, and that is where I stay. Go."
"A fucking fence-sitter," Ghaith said in English.
"You know, mate, I've worked in places where people eat the tics off their own bodies for sustenance. Places that make you wonder how humanity ever got this far. I won't go into torture, which you've got plenty of here. You were with me with we found that blood chamber. Medieval, with electricity thrown in. In those other places, here and there, you could always find a genuine smile. Big smiles, with big meaning. But here…look at this bloke. He's like the living dead. You're almost the only one here that I've met who smiles and means it."
"Perhaps mercenaries circulate in the wrong crowds."
"But there was Sarah…"
"Yes, a real Baghdadiyaat. She had a very nice smile."
"Just a girl, and girls smile…but there was something real about it. With any luck, she's still alive. With better luck, she's already dead." Gates frowned down at the father. "I can't imagine this joker smiling about anything. You say he's a fence-sitter? Well kick him off."
Ghaith stood and pressed the barrel of his AK-47 against the father's head. "Well…?"
The father looked hesitant for a moment, then shrugged.
"Very well. Open your mouth."
"What?"
"I'm going to stick my gun down your throat. I want to leave your remaining daughters with a portrait of your brain on the wall."
"The Americans would never—"
"But we're not Americans, are we?" Ghaith skipped to English. "Can you give me a hand, here, Gates? Go behind the chair and hold his arms down."
Gates shrugged and went behind the chair, taking the father by the arms. The man twisted his head sideways as Ghaith pressed the gun to his lips.
"What a bother. Mr. Gates, hold him sternly while I set my rifle down. Now…I just happen to have something more convenient." He reached behind and pulled out a Walther PPK. "Are the girls watching? I don't want them to see…"
Gates twisted sideways. "You're OK," he said after a moment.
With a sudden movement, Ghaith grabbed the man's head with one hand. The father was able to break loose, but by then the pistol barrel was in his mouth.
"You're a bloody Gurkha, Haji."
"There is something about the taste of gun metal that convinces the most hardened skeptic." Ghaith switched to Arabic. "Now, are you going to tell us where your daughter is?"
The father began to gag and nodded. Ghaith withdrew the gun.
"Well?"
"She—" The father began to cough. They waited for the fit to pass. "Follow the noise."
"What?"
"The noise that's been going on all night. They said she will be there."
Ghaith translated and Gates let go of the man's arms. "Godzilla…"
Ghaith stared down at the man slouched in the rattan chair. Now defeated, now fearful. Ghaith began to fiddle with his Walther, as though making sure it worked properly.
"You going to shoot him, mate?"
"I'd like to convince him that he should be shot."
"Haji, that's a stretch. I don't even live here, and I know
how they treat women."
"Do not include me in your 'they'." Back to Arabic. "You sold her out, didn't you? To save face with your tribe? It won't work. They'll wonder why you didn't do the job yourself. And you could have done it mercifully. But you chose this way. You knew what the irahibeen would do to her."
"It is the will of the Prophet—"
Ghaith pressed the gun against the man's forehead. "Go ahead, finish what you were about to say. I wouldn't want this to go off by accident before you said 'peace and blessings be upon him'."
"I have heard speak of a 'godless one'…"
"In the flesh. I'm the next step in that evolution your imam rails against. The new apes all carry guns and shoot selfish, unreasoning bastards. If you live long enough, you'll see the improvement."
"A takfir has been declared against you…"
"I'm excommunicated? I'm not surprised."
The man began to rock back and forth, praying.
"You shouldn't shoot a praying man, Haji," said Gates. "It goes against etiquette. You'll go to Hell. And with me standing so close, I'll get caught up in the net."
The reason why Ghaith did not kill the father was both complicated and simple. There was a lot of mental ho-hum rattling around his brain about the risk of becoming the very thing he loathed. Even if it was true, it was nothing compared to the irretrievability of death. Kill a man for living up to his culture? You might as well shoot a dog for barking. The same dog that could have warned you of an approaching enemy on a night of mists and confusion. Iraq was not what it had been a few years ago. It was becoming what it had been a millennium ago. And you did not spit on your own grave.
He leaned down again and faced the praying man.
"Stop praying for a moment and listen to me. How long have you lived here? Answer me!"
"The…year?"
"Is that too difficult?"
"I don't know…it was during the War of the Cities. I moved here when a Scud hit the Martyr's Place Primary School."
During the Iran-Iraq War, both sides had launched aerial attacks against each other using variants of the Scud Missle. Iraq had fired many more Scuds at Iran in what became known as the War of the Cities.
"I remember," said Ghaith. "Thirty-two children were killed. A great crime. Did you lose a child there?"
Tears came to the man's eyes. "My little Daniela…"
"Yes, it still hurts. I understand. And was she your only daughter at the school?"
"No…there was her twin sister…"
"Afaf. Was she injured?"
"She was sitting next to Daniela when it happened. God chose her to live."
"And you brought her here to live safely. Or relatively safely. Those Iranian Scuds were hit and miss. So Afaf was injured? We know she survived."
"Her body was disfigured."
"Not that anyone could see," said Ghaith. "But she was ashamed?"
"That she should show her scars—!"
"It didn't come to that," Ghaith interrupted. Poor Hutton, with his vision of falling into the arms of a lovely girl who would never let him see her body. "You loved her, then. I can see that."
"And Daniela."
"Of course. But tell me…did you not think of your sad, maimed Afaf as a little girl when you handed her over to her killers?"
"Yes!" the man wept deeply.
"You did so much to save her, and the rest of your family…and then you do this?"
"She was rebellious. I tried to make sense with her."
"You beat her?"
"Well?"
"And so you came to Sindabad. Not very far, but hopefully far enough to avoid the Scuds. And you remained after the war. I was here once before, also soon after the war. It was at night, like now, so I remain unfamiliar with much of the area. But you might remember my visit."
The man raised reddened eyes. "How so?"
"Our revered leader did a lot for women, most of which I'm sure you loathed. Education, freedom, that sort of thing. But when it came to prostitution, Saddam was a hard case. I won't say I've been too influenced by Western ideas, but I'm the Godless One, and I have to say our definition of what constitutes prostitution is pretty broad. One day, in the late Eighties, he went on a rampage. He had 200 prostitutes dragged out and beheaded. It wasn't too messy. They had a guillotine at Loose Dogs Prison. Where, I believe, Afaf spent some time. How was it she was released unharmed, by the way? She was probably tortured…raped…but she came out alive. Was it because you're such an upstanding citizen? Did you beg for her life?"
"Yes!" the man sobbed.
"You're doing a lot of blathering, Haji," said Gates. "I think you've made your point. We have to go."
"And yet you do this," Ghaith continued in Arabic to the father. "But back to my story. Saddam had a sadistic streak, as I'm sure you know. He had the executioners bag the heads, which were returned home and tossed on the doorsteps. I was a captain in the Army at the time. We had to provide an armed escort to the teams assigned to distribute the heads. Even under Saddam, people could take things…the wrong way. We didn't want some infidel father leaping out his front door to attack men who were only doing their duty. I pulled Sindabad. Do you remember that day? When neighbors woke up to find their daughters' heads on their stoups? You must. The weeping and wailing you must have heard! Afaf was still a girl at the time. She must have wondered what was going on. What did you tell her?"
"That it was just punishment for sin."
"Doesn't seem to have made much of an impact on her," Ghaith said. "But maybe it did, only in the wrong way. It fed her rebelliousness. Perhaps. Who knows? But she seems to have been fearless. Because, if she was fearful, yet continued her rebellious ways, that would have made her…brave. And her courage eventually landed her in Loose Dogs. What did she do to deserve that?"
"She…protested."
"That's all? 'Protested'? Against what?"
"I didn't understand her explanation."
"And you still don't, I guess. But back to my story. There I was, in the front of a crummy Bongo with a couple of prison guards in the back and a couple of dozen women's heads rolling around in their bags. And you know what I remember most? Those guards complaining about how heavy those heads were. Ten to twelve pounds, that's the weight of a head. And they were bitching and moaning about the weight as they dropped them on the doorsteps. And I thought it was a curious reaction. These heads…well, that's where the mind is, isn't it? When you think of it that way, those minds were heavy. And I felt…sad."
"You condone prostitution?"
"I condone all sorts of shit. Think about it, my friend. Isn't that what makes us human? That we tolerate all sorts of shit? The only shit we shouldn't tolerate is what's forced down our throat. Then it's something else, altogether."
"You are truly godless," said the father, dragging the tears out of his eyes with his knuckles.
"Then God has truly crammed shit down your throat." Ghaith eased back and looked at Gates. "We can go, now."
"Finally!" Gates said in exasperation.
They set out to find Godzilla.
Richmond, Virginia
July, 2008
Visiting the Husband
Ari thought Tareq Sadiq must have been cast upon the shoals of poverty after losing his trucking business to his wife. But on reaching the address Nabihah Sadiq had given him he found himself in the middle of a luxury condo community. While there was a kind of grey blandness to the long clusters of attached houses, there was no question it must cost a small fortune to live here. Either Nabihah's father had kept the pipeline open to his son-in-law, or Tareq had stashed away some serious cash before being kicked out of O'Connor's. All of the parking spaces near Tareq's condo were taken. Ari had to tuck away his Scion next to a small Gingko tree embraced by a cold cement planter at the end of the lane.
Out of habit, he surveyed the cars ranked on either side of the lane. His neck hairs tickled his collar when he saw two men in a Lincoln Continental. They looked bored and ina
ttentive, not at all like visitors. A man alone could be a chauffeur or Peeping Tom. Two? Bodyguards.
He turned up the sidewalk to Tareq's door and rang the doorbell. It was answered by a stranger, a tall, lean Arab in a business suit. His gaunt face put Ari in the mind of an ascetic, and his quiet "Yes?" had the hum of a contemplative philosophe.
"I'm sorry, I was looking for the home of Tareq Sadiq."
"You have found it," said the man.
"Ah…is he at home? Is he entertaining? I can come back at a more convenient time."
"I cannot send you away without knowing if that would offend him, so please…come in."
Ari stepped through the door and immediately saw why parking had been hard to come by. In the sitting room off the short hallway were over a dozen men seated on a long couch, a pair of leather-cushioned chairs and a scattering of fold-out chairs. From beyond them came the hushed voices of women, half-hidden by a wall separating the rooms. The men wore business suits, short-sleeved shirts or Middle Eastern clothing. A distinction of class or taste or simple convenience.
Ari started to back away, his intention to have a private chat with Tareq in tatters. But the man who had opened the door had closed it, as though trapping Ari with courtesy. His smile touched Ari with charm without brightness, like a pearl cultivated in a disgruntled oyster. His dark suit and tie seemed to indicate both the desire to be seen as a notable businessman while receding into bureaucratic anonymity. There was a hint of slackness in the cut, but this would only be noticed by someone of Ari's sartorial receptivity.
There must have been a buffet somewhere because the other men held small plates on their laps. Accustomed to sitting on the floor or at a table and scooping snacks out of shared bowls with their fingers, they found the delicacy of a formal Western-style party awkward and unenjoyable. They would have appeared comical to Ari, except there was also a gloominess that mere party plates could not account for.
"My name is Sanad Raimouny," said the suited ascetic. Ari took his hand and was surprised by the slackness of his grip.
"Ari Ciminon."
Some of the men began to rise to greet him, imperiling their plates and the drinks nestled about the carpet.
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